Sigh campaign ended in middle adventure path

[Akisa]

So what do you do if campaign ended in middle of adventure path? I want to continue it as a player but it's going to be tough to find group that wants to play the adventure path much less where you left off. Anyone had similar situation? How did you resolve it?

[mikej]

So what do you do if campaign ended in middle of adventure path? I want to continue it as a player but it's going to be tough to find group that wants to play the adventure path much less where you left off. Anyone had similar situation? How did you resolve it?

Yes, I hate that soo much. You're emjoying one campaign or particular character, then bam the other players with short attention spans lost thier character's new cool oppeal, then your out numbered and they want a new campaign.

General this happens a lot, especially since my particular DM & fellow players prefer melee and I enjoy casters. Soo campaigns regardless if the story is complete usually end around level 7th. Soo my suggestion is too go with the flow, most likely they're never going to go back to old things like that. If you want to continue advancing one particular character, just write up a random character until they're at the level were you lift your last one.

[SolkaTruesilver]

there are a lot more campaign beginning than there are ones ending, sadly.

Roll with it. You aren't alone in the world...

[Akisa]

there are a lot more campaign beginning than there are ones ending, sadly.

Roll with it. You aren't alone in the world...

Ok, then find me Rise of Rune Lords game (and no pbp).

I'd try to convince everyone to stick it out for 2-3 more sessions. End up the game, running it by the seat of your pants. Pull out all the stops, make it as epic as possible, tie up as many loose plot ends as you can, and don't worry about collateral damage to the world; it's not like you're coming back

game ended already...

[AslanCross]

It happens all the time. All games I was involved in have ended like this so far.

I had a really epic ending planned for a campaign that had been already cut short--I'd planned Lv 5-20, whittled it down to a Lv 12 ending, taking a lot of pains to make the story still make sense. Then one of my players got grounded indefinitely due to bad grades while the party was in the middle of taking a castle that belonged to one of the MBEGs.

Another adventure was supposed to be a one-shot, but we didn't finish it in one session. We decided to continue during the school fair, but we ended one encounter shy of the end boss. It was Hell's Heart, a horror adventure set in Eberron.

After the death of the first campaign, we decided to run the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure. At least this one had some closure, as we were able to finish the first chapter. Would've been awesome if we'd gone all the way to the end, though.

I have a feeling my current run of Red Hand of Doom won't end properly either.

[Bluebeard]

I've been gaming for about five years. I don't know that I've ever actually seen a long-running campaign (more than five sessions) concluded.

Life interferes -- players have new jobs, relationships, commitments that edge in. Campaigns begin to ramble and players grow more attached to those particular characters simultaneously.
Long-running games turn into sandboxes with rotating GMs so players can use roleplay their favorite characters and so that a game is kept on life-support soas not to be dropped completely. Eventually the old campaign is forgotten in favor of something newer and more fresh. Maybe it'll come up when a member of the old group shows up, but it doesn't last.

I'm tempted to paraphrase Doug MacArthur, but that seems gimmicky.

[Horatio@Bridge]

I had a five year campaign that ended just as the players teleported to the final adventure location. We were literally two or three sessions from facing down the Big Bad and setting the world right....

I did manage to recently complete a nine month campaign. Having learned my lesson from before, I set my sites on a specific story (in this case, I ripped off Joseph Campbell's cycle of the Hero), and had a definite end point. Which I achieved! I'm thinking that my current game won't get finished, though, since we started just a month before school ends...

[Saph]

Campaigns that don't finish properly outnumber ones that do by about 20 to 1, sadly. :(

I'm personally very proud of the fact that of the three major campaigns I've run, all of them ran all the way to their end and finished. (This is because I really hate campaigns that die mid-adventure, and so I only volunteer to run a game if I know I'm going to stick it through.)

Of course, this means that I always end up being nominated as the DM, and never get to play all the characters in my folder. Sigh.

- Saph

[Dixieboy]

I'm personally very proud of the fact that of the three major campaigns I've run, all of them ran all the way to their end and finished.

Tell me your secret

[Akisa]

Actually this is only my second time a long campaign ended for me w/o a conclusion.

[newbDM]

Tell me your secret

Yes. The inexperienced seek your wisdom!

[Saph]

Tell me your secret

Well, I kind of cheat by making them fairly short. :P

My ideal length for a campaign phase is about 8 sessions - that's about two months, one game per week. After two months I'll take a break and let someone else run something, then if everyone's keen (and they usually are, because DMs are always in short supply) I'll run another 8 sessions, and so on until the game finishes.

However, while those 8 sessions are running, I'm pretty ruthless. I tell everyone in advance when the game's going to be, and I run it on that date with whoever shows up. I don't postpone games, and if players can't make at least 2 weeks in 3 I replace them.

16 sessions total, with a break in the middle, is pretty much my ideal length. I usually have players level up every 2-3 sessions, so after 16 sessions they'll have gone up maybe 6 levels or so. That's long enough to get a good feeling of progression while short enough that completing it is still realistic.

You have to remember that players have a life outside the game. Unless your group is very old and very stable it's not realistic to expect everyone to still be playing the same campaign 2 years from now. People will change hobbies, schools, friends, cities, jobs. 8 weeks is enough for players to commit to it, and if it's a success you can add another 8 weeks later. At least, that's how I do it.

The truth is that competent, dependable GMs are incredibly rare. If you can run a game consistently for week after week, while avoiding the pitfalls that cause campaigns to fall apart, you'll never be short of players. Players love having a consistent world to grow and develop their character in, and once they find a GM they can rely on they stick to them like glue.

- Saph

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm kind of worried about something like this happening. I'm playing in a campaign that's winding up for the big finish. The problem is, the last game will probably take place after finals week for me, which means I'll be at home for the summer. My parents aren't likely willing to drive me two hours for a game that is lucky if it ends at midnight, so if we don't wrap up the game the week after next, I'm gonna end up missing out, which sucks not only because I'd like to be there for the big finish, but the party relies on me to tank, and if I'm gone the squishier characters will be a helluva lot more vulnerable.

The fact that my parents are getting fed up with my D&D playing and think I should stop playing to spend more time focusing on my schoolwork and saving my money to pay for textbooks and tuition fees doesn't help, but they're desperate that I wrap things up and get my degree next year, since we can't afford for me to take a fifth year of college.

[HailDiscordia]

I think that the key is setting reasonable goals for what you can do in a campaign. If the initial idea is taking a group from level 1-20, then no, it's probably not going to see a conclusion. That takes a long time and even if the players all stay together they will probably want to try something new long before the finish line rolls around.

I DM and have a great group of players that all make time to get together once a week. If someone can't make it on Tuesday (our regular night) we try to do it another night because consistency with the players makes a huge difference in keeping everything together. Plus, the couple's house that we play at always makes a bangin' dinner before we play, and that goes a long way to making sure that everyone is there.

Most of our campaigns go about 25-30 sessions with the same group of characters. We always start at Level 1 and wind up somewhere between 7-11, depending on how generous I am with xp. And while there are large story arcs that they are dealing with, there is never a singular plot line that is the focus of the campaign. I take turns working with characters back stories and throw in random side quests pretty frequently. I've been DMing a long time and I've found that getting to the end is often over rated. It's all the other stuff that is the most fun. Recurring NPC's, annoying villains, weird shop keepers, character death, etc...

The group I play with now (6 total, including me) is actually the best group I've played with. We have a blast each week. And the reason that it works so well, I think, is because rather than looking for people to play with I took my non DnD friends and turned them into gamers. They are the people I would be hanging out with anyway. They used to mock me for playing DnD and now they are as hooked as anyone! It's great.